buffy vs edward

Attention Buffy & Twilight fans!!! This is easily the coolest pop culture vampire-related thing I've seen in months:



Beats all the fake New Moon trailers for sure. Must have taken ages to put together.

clever

i got nothin'

Well, I got something, but no time to blog it today. Which is why I'm sending you over to see Arwyn, who's got something extemely fun (check out the link she posted to the flickr group, too ~ lots of gems in there). I like this one, too, from pep010:

At some point this week I will definitely be creating (and posting) a song chart of my very own. Because it must be done.

weather or not

We finally hit deep summer a few days ago and although the next few days will be cloudy/rainy (thunderstorms forecast for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday!!) the burst of heat was enough reason for me to get my ice crusher out. Fill half a tall glass with crushed ice, four squirts of lemon juice, two of lime juice, and enough soda water to make it all float to the top.

S.o. .v.e.r.y. .t.h.i.r.s.t. .q.u.e.n.c.h.i.n.g.

I'm glad we're getting more rain though, and the storms will break any heat that's left by then. In Adelaide (my hometown) Summer not only brings the scorching weather, but it keeps it there for three weeks at a time. That's one nice thing about Canberra; the heat never lasts too long. Of course we pay for that when it's dark at 5pm in the winter, but whatever...that's months away.

a neil gaiman themed item I won't be wearing

I can just see myself catching a glimpse of that slung over a chair and having a freaking heart attack.

I'd rather wear one of these:

made out like a bandit

(How do bandits make out? Do they kiss with tongues? hahaha)

I don't usually get a lot of presents for my birthday. Just not a kid any more I guess. but this birthday I got a whole bunch. I'd like to say I don't really care about getting presents, but in the end it was totally cool and I've spent the last week feeling like a gleeful pirate counting my treasure. Here's a selection:


Smallest mp3 player in the world. I have a big ole non-ipod 20GB-er, but this 1GB baby is tres cute and clips to my pocket.





This book from some friends who know I like Japan. I'm not really into Japanese history per se, but it's an interesting fictional setting (it's set in a world based on feudal Japan). It's the prequel to the Tales of the Otori trilogy, which I haven't read yet.







A game where you try to make high-scoring headline from the cards you are dealt, and end up with some funny headlines in the process.










Vampire romance bought with the bookstore voucher my sister gave me.


Plus about five other things including my mother throwing in for a goodly portion of my ticket to the The Police in January.



I would have gotten this lovely book, had the package not arrived open and empty. Australia Post are chasing it up as we speak, so I may still get it. I'll let you know. Frustrating, but.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering, we had my birthday dinner at Wagamama.

I had:

main meal: teriyaki steak soba
Teppan-fried soba noodles with baby bok choy, red onion, snow peas, beansprouts and chillies. garnished with grilled beef tenderloin, coriander and mixed sesame seeds drizzled with teriyaki sauce.

dessert: banana katsu
Crispy breaded banana with coconut ice cream served with honey and ginger syrup, dusted with cinnamon.

throughout dinner: Good conversation, lots of laughs, excellent birthday.

stargazing

Last night I took Keyboard Kid along to a stargazing night held by the Canberra Astronomical Society out on Black Mountain Peninsula. There were about twelve telescopes set up focused on various treats particularly nice to see in the August sky. Here's a rundown of what we saw. These photos are taken from the internet, and I have to say that in spite of the fact that some of these show more detail than we were able to see, most of what we saw was much more beautiful to see through the telescope, most likely because photo stars don't twinkle. More than that, there's something about the night sky that can't be captured in a photo. The photos are interesting, but seeing it for real is oddly moving.

Alpha Centauri is a triple star system consisting of two main stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, which form a binary system together, and a much smaller and dimmer red dwarf named Proxima Centauri. We checked out AlphaCen A&B, which to the naked eye look like one star. Last night we were able to split the binary system (view it as at right, as two seperate stars).
The Jewel Box (Kappa Crucis) is an open cluster of about 100 stars in the Southern Cross (a constellation which you North Americans may never have seen, but which is constantly in the Southern sky and so appears on the flags of Australia and New Zealand). In this photo you can see one very yellow star surrounded by bright blue stars. Last night we could see stars that looked red, yellow, blue and green. In case you were wondering, the colour of stars varies according to their temperature, which is also related to their age.



Omega Centauri is a globular cluster of stars seen in the constellation of Centaurus. It orbits the Milky Way and is the largest known globular cluster associated with our galaxy. Unlike other globular clusters, it contains several generations of stars.




Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system and the fifth planet from the sun. It is a gas giant with 39 moons at last count and there are constant massive electrical storms roaming its surface (cool, huh?). Its most prominent features are bands across its latitudes and a great red spot (which is a huge storm). Last night the moon was bright, so Jupiter looked paler than in this photo. We could also see three of its four major moons.

Antares is the brightest star in Scorpius, a zodiac constellation and very easy to find in our winter sky. Antares is a red supergiant which is often mistaken for Mars because it is red even to the naked eye. Certainly I've been wondering if it was Mars for years. :) It's an old and massive star, about 230 times as big as the Sun. Through the telescope it was the prettiest reddish gold. We weren't able to split it but it was beautiful for sure.

The terminator, that line where the light hitting our moon falls away into darkness, is interesting to look at. Because the light is skimming the surface at that point, the Moon's craters are much easier to see. We also looked at the whole moon, which was lumescent and beautiful, but left you a little blind from its brightness for a few minutes after you looked at it.

It was a nice night, and it made me want again to visit the Sydney Observatory with its huge telescope. I've meant to go a couple of times when I was in Sydney, but it's always been cloudy. I think if I lived there I'd go every month, because there's always something interesting to see.

The next sky event is happening on Tuesday night...a full lunar eclipse. Because of the way the Earth's atmosphere refracts the light of the Sun, the moon will not be black, but red instead. We've made lots of comments about the moon 'turning to blood' and I'm having a little 'end of the world as we know it' dinner party out on the balcony. Hopefully it isn't actually a sign of the imminent Apocolypse, or the joke will rather be on us, no? :)

a picture is worth a thousand cutting remarks

Looking for a special gift for that bitter newly-divorced friend? Here's a quirky little option I spotted in a local homewares store. Packs quite an impact, no?

Could be deeply satisfying...in a deeply twisted way.

movie review: ghost rider

If you are looking for a thoughtful storyline about the world we live in and the complexity of human relationships...stop! This isn't that kind of movie.

Sure, there's a story, but it's 'Kal-el comes to Earth and discovers he's faster than a speeding bullet, etc: must decide what to do with his awesome powers'. It's "Peter Parker bitten by spider: must decide what to do with his awesome new powers.' Are we seeing a pattern yet? Granted, 'boy is tricked by devil into making pact and becomes Ghost Rider: must decide what to do with his awesome new powers' offers a little more scope for originality, but truly the thing that most stayed with me is just how damn cool the movie is.


1. His bike is AWESOME. Fierce, gleaming, metal beast. I won't go on...look for yourself.









2. The chain. He carries a length of chain that he uses like a whip...kudos to the comic book writer for that one ~ so much more raw and cool than a whip cliche.









3. Nic Cage. The man likes comic books (he named his child Kal-el...I rest my case) and this is a very good thing, because he really can act, and it's nice to have someone with real skills (and some serious screen presence) in a movie some actors would have considered too frivalous.



4. The cinematography. A well-drawn graphic novel lends itself to the screen. Some of the cinematography in this film was so beautiful, so artfully constructed, that I would have bet money that it came straight from the art of the illustrator of the original comic. For those who have seen it, some of the scenes I'm thinking of are:

• the tree, the purple flowers, the vast fields beyond
• ghost rider on the bike, surrounded by the broken up road and pavement he has just thudded into from above
• the trail of flame as he rides down the curved road through the cemetary, seen from above

Apologies ~ I couldn't find a single one of these available as screenshots.

5. The villains. Not to be confused with an imaginary 50s band of the same name, Blackheart and the Elements (water, earth, air) are quite scary and wonderful to behold. I wasn't sure if Blackheart himself was supposed to represent Fire, or if they simply left that out to contrast the Elements against Ghost Rider's fire. I do wish a little more had been made of the individual Elements, as I'm sure was in the original.

Alas, Ghost Rider was not without its (apparent) plot holes, or at least one big one for which I would like an answer. Sadly if I explain what it is it will constitutes the biggest of big, fat spoilers and therefore I won't. I will however let you know if I find a satisfactory answer.

Final verdict: 3 flaming skulls out of 5, and I'm looking forward to a sequel with a meatier story